


outtake: kaunas, 1944

by apricotcake



Series: long is the road that leads me home [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Established Relationship, M/M, Massage, Oral Sex, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romani Bucky Barnes, Wartime Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22476532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricotcake/pseuds/apricotcake
Summary: It’s not even intentional. He just rubs your shoulder, presses his thumb into the knot of it for a moment, kneading, and the sound that comes out of you is almost wounded.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: long is the road that leads me home [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604464
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	outtake: kaunas, 1944

**Author's Note:**

> Deleted scene from [there’s no pure way to say it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289947/chapters/53233648). Technically, this could be read as standalone, but to get all the little things, I’d recommend reading the fic :’)

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s in there,” Steve says, just loud enough for you to hear him. “But I’ll check anyway.”

“Right behind you,” you answer, and linger at the edge of the trees, watching Steve inspect the house from the outside.

No lights on. The windows are boarded up. You prop your rifle over your shoulder, keep your eyes peeled. A few months back, you wouldn’t have been able to see in these conditions. Wouldn’t have been able to make out anything but pitch black, but you can see just fine.

The door is unlocked. Steve steps inside. You almost hold your breath, but he comes out less than a minute later, jogs up to you.

“Empty,” he says, shoves his wet bangs from his forehead. “We’ll get a better look once we’re settled in.”

_Settled in._

You’ve been walking through the rain and muck for hours, and your skin is almost soggy with it. The storm has long since slowed down, but you still feel like it’s roaring through your ears. Your feet are wet and cold, muddy water long since soaked into your socks and the last thing you want is a case of—

Your mouth fills with bile. You swallow it down, and it’s hot, acrid against your throat. You shove your hair out of your eyes, turn to Steve and jerk your head toward the house. The lights are off, and it looks worse for wear, but it’s something.

“Then what are we waiting for?” you ask, sputter against a drop of water before you wipe your mouth on your sleeve. “Lead the way.”

-

You’ve roughed it in worse. Muddy foxholes that smelled like shit from the asses of men and cows alike, bomb shelters that stunk of death and ash. It’s just a little dusty, a little mildewy. You can work with that. Steve can, too, since his lungs are just fine now. 

Besides, there’s a fireplace, a couple leftover cans of food, and the plumbing hasn’t gone to the dogs yet. There’s running water, and a bathtub upstairs. Whoever cleared out of here must have left recently.

“You go ahead first,” Steve says, hoarse. The circles under his eyes are darker than they were yesterday, like the time that Corcoran kid gave him two shiners two days in a row. “Get cleaned up. I’ll try to get the fire going.”

You want to say _what do you know about lighting fires?_ You want to protest, tell him to go first, but Christ, you’re so worn out, you don’t even bother trying. You smell ripe, anyway.

So, you head upstairs, legs burning with each step. The bathroom is clean enough, smelling a little damp, but you’re not heading back to the Savoy anytime soon. No hot water, no soap that smelled so good you didn’t even bother wearing cologne, no marble sinks.

The pipes gurgle and sputter before the water starts spewing out. You test it with your fingers. It’s cold, but it’s not unbearable. At least it’s warmer than the rain.

But the sound of the water hitting the tub, the splash of spray on your fingers, it suddenly makes you ache for home. You almost expect to turn around and see the stove, see Steve’s easel in the corner by the coat closet.

You’ve missed home, sure. Missed it the way everyone else does, but sometimes the littlest, tiniest things make you feel the loss in your teeth, in your marrow. It’s like a punch to the gut, or a bullet grazing your leg. 

Once, you felt it because your arms were aching with exertion, feet tripping over each other as you carried a bleeding GI back to camp, but at that moment, he felt suspiciously like Don or Arthur or Eddie, smelling of booze rather than fear and unable to stand because he was too drunk to hold himself up and not because he lost too much blood and had three bullets buried into his gut and another in his thigh.

Another time, it was the smell of coffee, of butter and eggs. A family in Palermo let you stay a night in their guest room. The next morning, the sight of the woman in the kitchen and her daughter rushing past each other, talking and laughing in a language you barely understood, dark hair pinned up at their napes, made you all choked up.

A few months back, it was the smell of fresh bread from a bakery in Salzburg. It mingled with the sound of a car backfiring, the sight of cats scattering through alleys, rats in the streets.

Those are things that get you bad. The small things. The things you didn’t appreciate enough before.

-

“For fuck’s sake,” you groan to yourself, peeling your socks off. You count your toes out of habit. One to ten in English, and then again in Romanes— _yekh, duj, trin, shtar_ —and so on, just to be sure. They’re still there. Just dirty as hell, sore and rubbed raw.

You’ll never forget the stories Milton used to tell, guys getting trenchfoot, their toes staying behind in their boots. You about lost your mind the first time Milton said it, unable to stop thinking about taking off your own boots, your own socks to find your toes missing or rotted. You had nightmares about it for days.

They only got worse when that other Texas kid—Houston, everyone called him—ended up proving it wasn’t some story, and he didn’t even scream. He just started crying. Sobbing like a little kid.

Turns out he was. Lied on his enlistment form, and was no more than sixteen before he got blown up a few hours later.

So, you air your feet out as the tub fills, set your socks on the empty towel rack before you strip down, peel yourself out of your clothes, drop your shorts to the ground. You’ll wash them, too, maybe. Let them dry by the fire. You feel so filthy it’s like the dirt has become a second skin. 

_Clack_. Your pack of matches and cigarettes drop out of your jacket, and you light up before you sink into the cold water.

It takes your breath away, just for a second, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut against it, puff out a strangled breath before you get a hold of yourself, take a drag of your cigarette, ashing it in the puddle you’ve sloshed on the floor.

You’ll get washed up in a minute. It’s not like the water’s getting any warmer, anyway. 

Leaning back, you let the cigarette burn sweetly against your throat, a stark contrast to cold porcelain at your neck. It’s quiet out here, maybe too quiet, but you have someplace to sleep tonight. With lights that still work, and a fireplace that might give you some warmth.

The knock at the door doesn’t startle you, even though you expect it to. You breathe out, deep and slow, not bothering to open your eyes. “Yeah,” you call.

“Okay if I come in?” Steve asks.

“Knock yourself out,” you say. “Nothin’ you haven’t seen before.”

Steve opens the door, still dressed in his wet clothes—standard issue this time. The suit is stored in his bedroll. You couldn’t afford to be caught sneaking around with Captain goddamn America. Not this far behind enemy lines.

“I found bars of soap, a couple of towels,” he says, sets them on the sink. “I guess they didn’t grab everything when they left, wherever that was.”

Whoever lived here definitely ran. An SS officer wouldn’t allow anyone to clear out their house, they preferred to drag them out by the scruffs of their necks. You know they like a fuss. You’ve seen it firsthand. 

You hum, puff out a flume of smoke. “Guess not,” you say through it, opening your eyes halfway. “You coming in?”

Steve leans against the wall to tug his boots off. “No point filling the tub up again,” he says instead of yes. His smile is tired, fraying at the edges. “But I think the last time I shared a bath with you, I was about seven.”

Christ, you forgot about that. “Was that when we played stickball with the Patterson twins after mass?” you ask.

“In the park across the street?” Steve says, peels his socks off, then undoes his belt with a clink. These days, that should make you feel something, but you don’t think you’re capable of much at the moment. Including getting it up. “My ma wanted to kill us.”

“So did mine,” you say, and you’re surprised to feel your lips curling up at the corners. You ash your cigarette again.

Steve is halfway undressed, jacket shucked off in the pile with your clothes. “Kinda nice when things were that simple,” he says, shrugs before he works at his shirt. “When that was the biggest thing to worry about.”

“Hey, don’t get all weepy on me” you say. He’s just as dirty as you are. Skin pink with the cold. “We ain’t kids anymore, anyway. We’ve been worrying about a lot of shit since life really got started.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, well, that ain’t like you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what I’m like anymore,” Steve snaps.

It hangs heavy in the air, and the way Steve’s mouth shuts, the way he swallows, it’s almost like he wants to pull the words back in.

“Somethin’s eating you,” you say instead of snapping back at him. You take in his half-opened shirt, the dirt on his nose, the slump to his shoulders. “Was it the—?”

“I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies since I got here, Buck,” Steve says without looking at you. He finishes stripping quickly, and you watch him pull off his socks, and maybe it’s nuts to check him, too, but you can’t help it. “Just not kids.”

“That won’t stop getting you,” you tell him. “It’s like the first time, every single time.”

Some ugly part of you wants to smack him up on the side of his big, stupid head. To say _you wanted to come here so quit whining about the real stuff, why don’t you,_ but you don’t.

You can’t. You can’t do that to him now.

“Just get in here, huh?” you say, and pull yourself up, water sloshing noisily as you try your best to make some room. “Forget about it for now.”

It takes a second, but he does. It’s an alright sized tub, big enough to fit two big mooks like you and Steve.

“You okay?” you ask, take another drag. You nudge your foot against Steve’s ankle. 

“Are you?” Steve shoots back.

You arch a brow at him. “I’m cold and dog tired, Rogers,” you say. “I smell like shit, I look like shit, and I could eat a fucking deer right now.”

“So, same as usual?” Steve asks, and it doesn’t show on his mouth, but his eyes light up a little with something like mischief. If you had the energy, you’d lean forward and kiss him.

You roll your eyes, drop your cigarette in the puddle. “Yeah, wise guy, same as usual,” you say before you splash him. “Now, quit worrying about me and wash your ass for once.”

-

You rip off a strip from one of the towels and use it as a wash cloth, and you scrub until your skin is raw. Until the bath water has turned cloudy with soap and dirt. You don’t even want to think about what the tub will look like afterward.

“Turn around if you can,” you say after a while. “Lemme get your back.”

A bit of maneuvering, and Steve does. Maybe, it’s an excuse to touch him. To get reacquainted with it, but Steve definitely neglected his back.

“Big long arms like you’ve got now, and you don’t even think to reach?” you muse, run the cloth up his back. “Guess the serum didn’t help your brain out too much.”

“Hey,” Steve says. “Eidetic memory, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, good for you, you can remember everything but how to bathe. Great.” You slide your palms up his soapy back before you wrap your arms around his chest. “Hey, c’mere. Lean back on me.”

The water sloshes, rises a little when he does, when you rest your back against the rim of the tub, but even now, Steve’s hands are warm when they close around your forearms. His body, too. His hair drips steadily against your neck, and you bracket his hips with your knees, shut your eyes.

You breathe out slow, feel Steve do the same. “Sorry,” you say after what feels like forever. “Just needed a minute with you.”

“Take as many minutes as you want,” Steve says. 

“Best idea you’ve had all day,” you say. You press your nose into his hair, smelling of wet trees and plain soap. It’s surprisingly comforting. “You know, when you said you missed worryin’ about little things. It ain’t just you, pal. I’m not gonna lie to you, I miss worrying about oversleeping, or missing the rent. Or trying to find some girl I actually could deal with marrying one day, but I don’t wanna go back. Not really.”

Steve cranes his neck to look at you. His lashes are wet, hair pushed back from his brow for once. “You don’t?” he asks.

“Not _back_ , you know?” you say, dip your head down. “Not with a time machine or something. I’d take a way out now, with you, not back where we started.”

That leaves his face twisting up. “Phillips was giving you a discharge, Bucky,” he says. “Why didn’t you just take it?”

No point hiding anymore. You’re already flayed to the bone. “I wasn’t going home if I knew you were out here breaking your neck,” you say. “My whole point of wanting to get out was to get back to _you_ , not...not working three jobs and living in the apartment alone. It was my choice, so don’t get so cut up about it.”

You trace patterns into his forearm, and after a moment, he leans further back against you, reaches back to grab your neck, tugging you closer.

When you kiss him, his lips are slick with soap.

-

You dry off after a little while, drain the tub. You get back into your dirty clothes and pull your clean socks from your pack. You wash your underwear in the sink in freezing water before you put them to dry by the fire, not a pretty sight, but some things gotta get done, and you don’t exactly have a clothesline.

The canned food turns out to be soup, and with a pot and some matches at the gas stove, you manage to get some hot food in your stomachs. You smoke another cigarette in the meantime, and clean the bowls out of habit. You feel better than you thought you would.

Turns out being clean and full works wonders on the soul.

The bedrolls are set up by the fire. There are bedrooms upstairs, but neither you or Steve is going to pass up on a chance of sleeping somewhere warm, even if that is on a dusty floor. “For a city guy, you started a mean fire,” you say when Steve plops down beside you. “You must have had a decent teacher.”

“Yeah, no clue what his name was though,” Steve says, mirth in his eyes. “He was an ass about it, too.”

Oh, the bickering that started. Steve’s big clumsy hands just couldn’t seem to get a handle on it at first, and Morita thought it was hilarious. Kept calling you Mr. and Mrs. Rogers throughout it all, which was funny, but you were too annoyed to laugh at the time.

Steve slides his hand up your back, sits a little closer before he settles it against the junction between your neck and shoulder.

It isn’t even intentional. He just rubs the spot, presses his thumb into the knot of it for a moment, kneading firmly, and the sound that comes out of you is almost wounded. Your head dips forward on its own accord, eyes slipping shut.

Steve’s hand stills. “Buck?” he asks.

“Don’t even _think_ ,” you mutter, vowels going a little soft. God, you need to sleep. “About stopping. Fucking hell.”

“That bad, huh?” Steve says, and you don’t have to look at him to know he’s making that face. Brows knit together, nose scrunched up. “Fine, gimme a second.”

You strip to your undershirt to give Steve better access. He shifts to sit behind you, and then both his hands, searingly warm from the fire, are at your shoulders, rubbing and kneading far too gently. 

“Don’t be shy,” you say. “I tried to teach you how to knead a loaf of bread, didn’t I? Do it like that.”

“Then maybe do this yourself,” Steve teases, but starts kneading harder than before. “God, Buck, you’re all knotted up.”

“Thanks for— _ow_ —tellin’ me,” you grit out. You puff out a breath, shut your eyes tight. “Don’t be shy, Rogers. Harder than that.”

He’s helped you with this only once before. You’d been hauling crates around the docks for days, and even soaking in the bath, even Aspirin didn’t help, so you stripped out of your shirt, handed Steve the jar of arnica salve, and asked him to help you out. And sure, it worked. His thumbs and the heels of his hands dug into your shoulders, into your back like it was his _job_ , but the feeling of his hands on you was too much to bear, and you eventually told him to buzz off, told him that was good enough, even though you still ached a little, and then ached in a whole different way by the time you shut yourself in the bedroom.

And there he goes again, smoothing out the knots and making you shiver like the ugly, wet wind from outside has gotten into your hideaway for the night. 

It’s just the two of you, anyway. No one’s here to see, to hear. Jones, Dernier, and Falsworth are still in Warsaw. Dugan and Morita are making their trek to Kaunas now.

So, you can have this, have a moment alone. You can let yourself melt into Steve’s touches, into the intense pressure of his thumbs digging into the spaces just below the knob of your spine, the meat of your shoulders. You gasp when something cramps up tight and then loosens, suck the air back in through your teeth.

“Fuck,” Steve murmurs, hands not stopping yet. “Did that hurt?”

“Yeah,” you say, and your voice catches ever so slightly. “Do it again. Christ.”

He does. He keeps rubbing, keeps kneading at you like a goddamn hunk of dough until you can breathe easier, until you feel a little bruised, but ultimately, better. Boneless, even, but Steve doesn’t stop.

“Lay down,” Steve says after a little while, taps your shoulder. “On your stomach.”

“No problem,” you say. You feel a little drunk on the touches, from having his hands on you in such a different way. There’s been necking, some touching on each other, but not like this. The simple stuff always seems to leave you fraying at the seams.

You settle on your bedroll, arms pillowed under your chin, and you feel how close Steve is. Feel his hip pressing against yours before his hands lift your shirt up, expose it to the heat of the fire, the draft from the floor, the feel of Steve’s fingers kneading down in the knots beside the bumps of your spine, the big, stubborn one in your lower back.

“Oh, fuck,” you moan into your arms, toes curling. “You using this as an excuse to take your aggression out on me?”

“You using this as an excuse to get your rocks off?” Steve asks, and you laugh at him, really laugh. “Sounds like you’re enjoying this way too much, if you ask me. You could have just asked for a helping hand, y’know.”

“Are you offering?” you ask, squeeze your eyes shut tight as another knot loosens up. It might be the last one. God knows you needed that. You wave Steve away with one hand before you turn over, flop onto your back, feeling dazed. “‘Cause I’m about as hard as a marshmallow right now. Gonna take some effort on your side.”

Steve moves to lean over you, and you grab him by his shirtfront, just to throw him off his balance a little. The fire’s turned him gold and soft, turned his eyes dark. “I ain’t one to back down from a challenge,” he says. “Plus, I got a better idea.”

There it is, a dark curl of want rushing straight to your groin. You feel yourself grin and slide your fingers up into his hair, give it a tug. “Well?” you say. “Wanna share it with the class?”

He catches your mouth with his, soft but brimming with heat. A kiss that turns your limbs even more slack than they are now. “Maybe,” Steve says against your lips, presses a kiss to your jaw, then the spot beneath your ear, then your pulse point. “I dunno.”

“Asshole,” you murmur, and tilt your head back to give him better access. “Such a little asshole.”

Your shirt is still hitched up, and Steve takes it as an opportunity to drag his lips down your chest, to lick one of your nipples into his mouth, grazing his teeth over it gently.

Okay, now you’re awake. “Shit,” you hiss, watching the line of his back. “You’re not an ordinary asshole. You’re a big, ugly throbbing asshole.”

You feel him smirk more than see it, feel him laugh into your skin. “That’s disgusting,” he mutters, lifts his head up to look at you. “Ugh, Buck, shut up.”

You scratch your fingers against his scalp, fee him lean into it. “Not unless you make me,” you say. ”Take that as your challenge.”

”You asked for it,” Steve says, and then he’s lowering himself down your body, leaving your gut clenching with anticipation. You haven't done this with him yet. It’s too compromising of a position to be caught in, no way to explain it.

Hell, if you’ve got any time, the time’s now. “Hey,” you say anyway. “What are we gonna do it a coupla Nazis looking for somewhere to sleep find Captain America sucking off his sniper?”

Steve shrugs, nonchalant. “Hey, I’m here to boost morale, aren’t I?” he says. “Gotta do it any way I can.”

You sputter out a laugh. “So, you’ll keep sucking my dick while I paint the walls with their brains?”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Steve says. 

“Fucking hell,” you chuckle. “You’re the worst. You're the goddamn worst, Rogers, I swear.”

“Yeah, yeah, heard it all before,” Steve says, and opens your belt, shucks your pants down, where your dick springs free. “You gonna shut your trap now?”

“Told you,” you say, lean up on your elbow. “You’re gonna have to make me.”

He wraps his fingers around you, gives a slow stroke from base to tip, and...

Alright, yeah. Steve might win this one.

You wonder if he’s done this before, or had it done to him at the dirty parties he pretends he didn’t go to. If not, you’d like to do it to him. You’re good with your mouth, no matter who you’re with.

Steve sucks the head of your dick between his lips, takes you into the slick heat of his mouth, the velvet slide of his tongue, and you bite back a moan, tighten your grip on his hair, just enough to let him know you’re lucid, that you’re there, because every other part of you wants to melt into the floorboards.

“There ya go,” you breathe, resist the urge to shut your eyes, because you want to see this. You don’t want to miss a goddamn _thing_. “Fuck.”

Steve swallows, hums around you before he takes you deeper, eyes shut with it. The fire casts sharp shadows over his face, and you trace over them, over the shell of his ear, the back of his neck. “Keep going like that,” you say. “Just like that.”

You want to carry on, since that’s what you usually do, but then he does something with his tongue, with his wrist that makes you see stars, makes you gasp and feel like your brain is leaking out your ears.

It’s easy to float after that, easy to forget where you are for a little while, and you’re so wound up, you don’t think you’ll last long at all right now. You usually do, but since it’s so hard to find a window for this, such long stretches without getting off, you usually find yourself a little more sensitive than usual.

Steve does, too, but he says that also might be a side effect of the serum. Says his refractory period isn’t long because of it, either, and you plan to test that whenever you get back to London.

But for now, you let yourself get lost in the feel of his mouth, the sight of his head bobbing down on you, nose pressing to the space below your stomach.

Your breathing picks up after a while, after Steve gets more adventurous. Going deeper, sucking harder, and leaving you gasping when his hand slides to the cleft of your ass, when his finger presses right up against your entrance.

“ _Steve_ ,” you choke, and your balls tighten up almost painfully, eyes squeezing shut when he presses in, socked heels digging into the floor, eyes pricking with need. “Deeper than that. ‘M right there.”

Deeper he goes, and then he swallows you whole, throat spasming around your dick and there it is. Your release blinds you, leaves you tensing all over, biting back a yelp when Steve moves his finger inside of you, thrusts it forward like he’s fucking you and that’s what gets you. Your hips arch up on their own accord, and Steve’s free hand keeps them in place, thumb digging into the bone, and it’s just this side of painful but you don’t care. It’s grounding, it’s—Christ, it feels fucking intoxicating, the little bite of discomfort combined with the molten heat your climax.

Your hips stop stuttering, and you catch your breath as Steve sucks you through it. You feel his throat spasm again. “Okay,” you huff when a prickle of discomfort runs down your thighs. “Okay, enough.”

He pulls off with a breath, quick and heavy, and slips his finger out gingerly, making you twitch one last time, before he rests his chin against your thigh, just as breathless as you are.

You slip your hand under Steve’s jaw, thumb swiping over his lower lip, dark and wet and swollen. You know he’ll taste like you if you drag him up for a kiss, and you know how filthy that is, but you kind of like it. Always did. Always liked how Andy tasted after, too.

Steve’s eyes are blown wide, a pale ring of blue in the dark. You trace your fingers over the bump of his nose, trail up into his hair, feeling him relax into the touch.

“So,” you start, and his gaze flickers toward you, breath warm against your sweaty skin. Hell, who would have thought you’d sweat tonight. You thought you’d be roughing it in the mud by now, pressed close to Steve—who tended to be a goddamn furnace—to conserve as much body heat as you can.

“You learn that in Greenwich?” you ask, and you feel him laugh against your bare thigh, feel his shoulders shake with it. You grin, nudge him with your ankle. “What? I’m serious!”

“You ever gonna stop talking about Greenwich?” he asks, muffled against your skin.

You shake your head. “Not in a million years.”

“Well, we ain’t getting there any time soon,” Steve says, lifting his head. He pulls your pants up and move to rest his body over yours, hips slotting together easily. You’ve bulked up, even with the lack of food. Built up more muscle than usual. You can take his weight. He’s rock hard against your hip, but doesn’t seem to be making a fuss about it. “So make do with what we got.”

“Gladly.” You lean up to kiss the corner of his mouth before you suck his lower lip between your teeth. He makes a shuddering sort of sound when you run your tongue over it, when you reach down to grab his ass. “Hey, my turn.”

Steve shakes his head. “You don’t gotta,” he murmurs. “Wanted to do somethin’ for you.”

“And I’m nothin’ if not a nice guy.” Your voice is muzzy, a little slurred. You kiss his chin, then his pulse point, rabbit-quick against you lips. “You want it? You want me to?”

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “Yeah, Buck, I do.”

“That’s what I thought,” you murmur. You catch him in a real kiss, taste the musky salt of yourself on his tongue, feel dizzy with it. 

When he moans, it goes right through you and dark rush comes back, maybe a little stronger than it was before. You try not to worry about it. Try not to think about refractory periods, about not getting drunk.

Besides, Steve ruts down against you, jolts you from your spiral. You squeeze him tighter, roll your bodies over with a thump and hover over him.

His chest is heaving, and you want to see more skin, because he’s flushed already, cheeks and throat gone red with it, which means the rest of his body has followed suit. You’ve got a couple ideas brewing at the back of your mind already. It’s just choosing which to act on now. You run your hands firmly up his outer thighs, up his hips, allow yourself to take it all in without interruption.

“We’ve got, what, a day until the guys get up here?” you ask, undo his fly without looking, tug his pants down. “I wanna make the most of it.”

It’s the lightest Steve has looked in ages. Hell, you’re in the same boat. If there’s an after to any of this, you think you might want to feel like this all the time.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Steve says, and grabs the nape of your neck, thumb sliding over the corner of your jaw, maybe a little too tenderly.

You slip your hand under his shirt, lift it up a little just to feel the heat of him. All smooth, taut skin. “You gonna tell me what you want or let me figure it out?” you ask.

“You take the wheel,” he says. He looks like he’s gone over the edge already, the speed of his breath the only thing betraying him.

Your dick fills out again, just like that.

“Attaboy,” you murmur, and kiss a spot beside his navel, then the pale line of hair trailing down his stomach before you move even further down to get your mouth on him.

-

The fire dwindles down after a while. You feel tender, tingly in a way that feels just a tinge uncomfortable since you went over the edge a second time, jerked off against Steve’s hip, but barely got anything out. It felt strange. New, but undeniably good.

Steve’s on his way to drifting off, and you think you are, too. You don’t even realize it when you fall asleep, because you blink awake, thoughts slow and thick like molasses, and find blue morning light flooding through the slots from the windows.

You shut your eyes, just for a few more minutes. You’ll deal with the rest of the morning later on.

For now, you can let yourself have this.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I lurk on [Tumblr](https://saccharinemornings.tumblr.com/), so come say hi!


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